Monday, June 19, 2017

Full disclosure: Marc Faber is always preparing for a stock apocalypse. (That's why he’s commonly referred to as “Mr. Doom.”) Still, he insists, there’s method to his misery. And right now he sees two red flags flapping in the market.

One: On the New York Stock Exchange, there are currently more stocks purchased on margin—that is, with investors borrowing money to buy—than since at least the 1950s. That tends to happen when the stock market is expensive, as it is today.

Prices are actually out of control, Faber says. The historical average price-to-earnings ratio is around 17—but it's around 30 today.

Once people start selling, Faber warns grimly, there will be an avalanche. “I think a realistic scenario is that asset holders will lose 50% of their assets," Faber says. "Some people will lose everything.”

His other major concern is that only a small number of stocks are driving the bulk of the stock market’s ascent. Indeed, just five companies accounted for almost a third of the S&P 500’s total gains in 2016. This means that investors are relying on fewer companies to carry the market, he points out.“If only a handful of shares are moving up, it’s a sign,” Faber says. “The market isn’t healthy.”

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

On a day when market scaled record high on Tuesday, Marc Faber cemented bullish sentiment further by saying that India will continue to outperform the US and other western markets, he said in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18.

The editor and publisher of The Gloom, Boom, and Doom Report said that India has got a new government with (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi leading the charge from the front, has much better chance of implementing reforms than say US President, Donald Trump.

Commenting on the economy he said that central banks in emerging economies (EMs) such as India are much more responsible and educated about perils of money printing. RBI’s former governor Raghuram Rajan & present governor Urjit Patel have done a good job in stabilising the rupee.

Indian market is up 13 percent in local currency and in dollar terms, the market is up close to 18 percent led by a rise in the rupee. The currency is very important for foreign investors. A strong currency can pull foreign investors towards India, he said.

“I remain constructive on India and over the next 10-20 years, India has the potential to grow at 5-7 percent each year – which is huge compared to growth rate seen in the US or Europe,” said Faber.

India, according to PwC, in 20-30 years will become a second largest economy in the world similar to China. He also highlighted that only marginal amount of domestic saving find its way to Indian equity markets.

The wealthy families should at least put 20 percent of the money in Indian equities or Indian properties and direct investment because it is time to look forward.

Today, US stock market is 53 percent of the global stock market capitalisation now. But, in 10-20 years, it will be reduced to 20 percent and India and China will hog lion share up to 50 percent, highlights Faber.- Source, Money Control

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Well, basically some people say that the central banks are out of bullets. This is not my impression. They can keep on printing money and boost asset prices where by not all asset prices will go up, some will go up and some will go down. But the point I want to make is the central banks are not really out of bullets. The economy, if it weakens some stocks will outperform others, in other words recently you’ve seen the weaker in automobile stocks, so there is still a selective process in the market. The stocks that have gone up the most recently are actually mostly companies with very little earnings, very high evaluations, Tesla, Amazon, Netflix and so forth and we’ll have to see.

All I can say is when I look around the world, I don’t see any particularly good values in the U.S. except in mining companies and I think some of the interest rate sensitive stocks are again relatively attractive because I expect the economy to disappoint, especially if the Fed continues to increase interest rates and so a short increase in interest rates could mean some further weakness in bond prices but eventually bond prices could rally again and this is my view that the U.S. by any standards compared to historical evaluations, compared to Europe, compared to Asia, compared to emerging markets the U.S. is very expensive. Now, can it go up another ten percent? Maybe 20 percent? Yes, between December 1999 and 2000 March 21 when the stock markets peaked out the Nasdaq was up more than 30 percent, but was it a good buy? No, everybody who bought at the time in the first three months of 2000 lost money.

So, my sense is that yeah people can buy stocks here but most of them are going lose money with the exception in my view, that mining stocks will perform reasonably well.